A little more than a full year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's latest entrant for the 2026 season. Building the team from scratch has entailed a hectic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As Formula One arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the championship to be staged in the United States, with around 100 days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are aware there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic operation in early 2023 soon after it was formed, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center since then and enjoys a wry smile when reflecting on the ride.
“You can have a short period thinking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in less than three years,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you think: ‘Well, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Nick Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the task of launching the iconic American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the corporate entity, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an Formula One team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you don’t get the opportunity to change cultural approach.”
With each day that passes thoughts are more focused on the impending critical moment in the Australian GP and expectations are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented earlier this year and while the CTO shared this view he believed the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “In order that we show up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender executing the proper actions on the track. Once we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on improvement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Effort
In August they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their drivers for the 2026 season, a tandem distinguished for their priceless expertise in operating at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver echoed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it will likely be probably a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to finish last. I believe with this structure, with this team, these personnel, it's entirely possible we won't be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with employees now up to in excess of 400 and intended to reach the objective of 600 members rapidly. In addition to their current base at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of finishing an main base at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to manufacture the power unit, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex structure, at odds with the movement in F1 for more centralization, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester alluded.
NASA Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” said the team principal just before the Silverstone race in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how challenging it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management similar to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of project teams all focusing on various components of the program at a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a process where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their team leader, that supervisor talks to a manager somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” notes the CTO. “We give authority to people to handle things directly. Avoiding hierarchical consent for all decisions is so much cleaner and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this nimble methodology will be proven in the heat of competition next season and there is a significant degree riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta
